It is nowadays generally accepted that it is desirable to provide some form of air exhaust system in conjunction with an autopsy table to entrain any noxious substances, including gases, emitted from the body away from an operator and thereby minimize his/her chances of infection and contamination.
Probably the most well known and long-established type of autopsy table hitherto used in a simple ceramic slab with no air exhaust system at all. However, more recently, a stainless steel table with a discontinuous or perforated surface has been introduced. This table usually has air exhausted vertically downwards through the surface to a duct in the floor and subsequently via an exhaust fan and a filter out of the building to the external atmosphere. Cleaning of the perforated surface is difficult, which in itself leads to hazards of contamination. Also air exhaustion is not satisfactory as many of the perforations are at least partially blocked off by the body being examined or substances emanating from that body.
Either of the aforesaid tables may be used in conjunction with an overhead canopy which supplies sterile or conditioned air in a downward direction to the table. However, after careful research it has been shown that such an air flow arrangement causes undesirable turbulence around the face of an operator carrying out an examination on the table. This turbulence may, of course, have the deleterious effect of increasing the chance of the operator inhaling dangerous bacteria or gases which are often emitted from the body during an autopsy.
Also, both the aforesaid types of autopsy table have generally been fixed in position in a post-mortem room. Although tables which include an exhaust duct beneath the table top may be swung about a vertical axis provided by said duct, they cannot be removed from the duct because the duct is always internally contaminated with, for example, bacteria.